Billions of Singles

Saturday was a smashing Singles’ Daysuccess for Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. The internet giant’s sales during the holiday dedicated to China’s unhitched population exceeded $1 billion in the first two minutes of the day en route to a record $25.3 billion, which exceeded analysts’ expectations. The near 40-percent sales growth vindicated the view of GGV Capital managing partner Hans Tung – an early investor in the firm – that Singles’ Day fatigue has not yet set in.

Coming Up…

Indian inflation is the day’s highest-profile release, projected to pick up to 3.45 percent year-on-year in October. That’d be nearly 2 percentage points above its nadir in June, but a move more reflective of a supply shocks than buoyant demand. September’s deceleration in pricing pressures increased expectations that the Reserve Bank of India may be forced to deliver another rate cut before year-end. Japanese producer prices are forecast to accelerate a tick to an annual rate of 3.1 percent year-on-year in October, while we’ll also get the preliminary reading on machine tool orders for that month. Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda speaks in Zurich on Tuesday.

And finally, here’s what David’s interested in this morning

Two weeks ago, I wrote about how it’s almost impossible to identify that moment when healthy exuberance crosses that proverbial line in the sand and evolves into (to borrow a line from Alan Greenspan) irrational exuberance. Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital was bang on pointwhen asked about this on Daybreak Asia. He said the market’s behaving rationally based on risk-free rates at or near zero. That’s the current matrix. In the same way that to someone who’s drunk, inhaling three kebabs is normal. With risk-free rates where they are, even potential returns on my soggy, running socks right after a 10K run will churn out a buy signal when the variables are plugged into the CAPM.

But seriously, the endeavor ahead is not just spotting and but also evaluating the early warning signs as the cost of money grinds higher. By the time multiples adjust lower, it’s almost guaranteed that’ll be a symptom and not the cause. Mark Tinker, Head of AXA Framlington Equities Asia, suggests watching XIV or what he calls the “Greed Index”. It’s an ETF that’s the inverse of the VIX. People who buy are actually short volatility and pushing it down without necessarily knowing it, he says. It’s tripled this year. Have a look when you have time. Might not be the very first place you look to gauge a change in sentiment but remember glitches often take place at some of the farthest boundaries of the matrix.

Archives

ABOUT US

Besides of our business activities like real estate brokerage(http://m2mrealestate.vn/) services and business consulting, we are also traders and trade forex, stocks, futures, commodities, indices and ETFs. We focus mainly on trading forex and stocks included commodities. With more than 10 years of experiences and be active in the markets, we have experienced both losses and wins but we win the trading experiences during the time.
We understand the problems of trading which...Read more